‘Mourning,’ ‘Nio’ win New Currents Award in Busan

“Mourning” by Iranian director Morteza Farshbaf and “Nio” by Filipino director Loy Arcenas have won the New Currents Award at the Busan International Film Festival. The award recognizes Asia’s best rising directors.

BIFF wrapped up its nine-day event on Friday evening in Busan, with the screening of closing film “Chronicle of My Mother” by Japanese director Masato Harada.

BIFF’s jury said in a statement that “Mourning” is “a very confident attempt to create a new film language that is disturbing at times and heart-warming from moment to moment.”

“After all, this movie sets a new standard of cinematic poetry,” it said.

Of “Nio,” the jury said it is “a well-scripted, finely interpreted, superbly directed film that turns a familiar family saga to a new Aria in an opera.”

At a festival closing press conference at the Busan Cinema Center on Friday morning, the BIFF also announced winners for other awards including Flash Forward Award, Sonje Award (short films), BIFF Mecenat Award (documentaries) and KNN Movie Award (audience award).

Flash Forwad Award, aiming to shed light on non-Asian directors, went to “LA-BAS-A Criminal Education” by Italian director Guido Lombardi. The Sonje Award was given to India’s “Thug Beram” by Venkat Amudhan and Korea’s “See You Tomorrow” by Lee Woo-jung. Japan’s “DIY Encouragement” and Korea’s “Bugging Heaven; Listen to Her” received Special Mentions.

Lee Yong-kwan, director of the BIFF, told reporters that the festival was successful in general.

“Although the opening of the Busan Cinema Center was not very satisfactory, the festival in general was quite successful thanks to the audiences’ mature sense of citizenship,” Lee said.

The BIFF screened 307 films from 70 countries and the number of viewers totaled 196,177, according to the BIFF.

By Kim Yoon-mi (yoonmi@heraldcorp.com)